You will recall that on 4th July
2016, we took regulatory action on Skye bank Nigeria Plc, Specifically, this action led to the
resignation of the chairman, all Non-Executive Directors on the Board as well
as the Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director, and two longest-serving
Executive Directors on the Management Team.

At that time proactive action was informed
unacceptable corporate governance lapses as well the persistent failure of Skye
Bank PLC to minimum thresholds in critical prudential and adequacy ratios,
which culminated in the bank permanent presence at the CBN Lending Window.

The focus of the action then was save deposited
funds and to ensure that the bank continued and going concern, being a systemically
important ba Part of our intention was
also to steam the immunity job losses to staff if a liquidation option had been
adopted. These objectives hace been fully achieved and the bank has been able
to meet customers obligations, having curtailed the liquidation haemorrhage and
resorted depositor confidence.Indeed, the bank's performance has improved
considerably compared to the pre-July 2016 era.

The result of our examinations and forensic audit of
the bank has, however, have revealed that the Skye bank requires urgent
recapitalisation as it can no longer continue to live on borrowed
times with indefinite liquidity support fron1 the CBN. The shareholders of the
bank have been unable to recapitalize it.

As a responsible and responsive regulator and in
consultation with the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation(NDIC), we have
decided to establish a bridge bank, Polaris Bank, to assume the assets and
liabilities of Skye bank. The strategy is for the Asset Management Company of
Nigeria (AMCON) to capitalize the Bridge Bank and begin the process of sourcing
investors to buy out AMCON. By this decision, the licence of the defunct Skye
Bank is hereby revoked.

We wish to assure all depositors that under this arrangement,
their deposits shall remain safe and that normal banking services shall
continue in the new bank on Monday, 24th September, 2018, to enable customers
to transact their businesses seamlessly.

Thus, all customers of Skye Bank shall be automatic
customers of the new bank and their accounts and records duly purchased by
Polaris Bank.

Given the good performance of the board and
management, the CBN shall retain
them. In addition, all
employeesof Skye Bank shall be absorbed by
Polaris Bank under a new contract unless any employee decides to opt out.

We wish to assure the general public that the
Nigerian banking industry remains safe and resilient and that the CBN will
continue to live up to its responsibilities of promoting stability in the
banking and financial system stability